Vladimir Kara Murza
One inconvenience of heading a puppet political party is that, at any moment, the puppet master may remind you who is really pulling the strings. Mikhail Prokhorov learned this lesson the hard way. Last week, the Forbes billionaire, whose fortune is estimated at $18 billion (making him the third-richest man in Russia and the eighth-richest man in Europe), was publicly shown his place by a midlevel Kremlin apparatchik. Radii Khabirov, deputy head of the internal politics section at the presidential administration—a subordinate of the Kremlin’s notorious deputy chief of staff, Vladislav Surkov—directed the national convention of Right Cause party to dismiss Prokhorov as leader. Delegates, who had just three months ago enthusiastically embraced the billionaire and called him their “Czar, father, God, and military commander,” equally enthusiastically (by 75 “ayes” to zero “nays,” with two abstentions) voted to fire him....
Article:
http://www.worldaffairsjournal...